Offender Management Bill

I sense that this is the last of this afternoon’s debates on this Bill. I shall not detain the Committee too long, but important points have been made to which I need to respond. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, for putting the amendment before us, because it provides us with a very welcome opportunity to debate the process by which contracts should be let under the new arrangements that the Bill envisages for delivering probation services. I start with a slight tease. In the past, I have listened to Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches berating the Government for setting too many targets, yet here we have a Liberal Democrat amendment setting a target. That is a novel experience; culturally, it is rather hard to adjust to.